157 - Get Around Yourself With Mike McDerment

<h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style= "color: #0b127e;">“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” – Warren Bennis</span></h3> <p><img style="float: right;" src= "https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/show/91530/Mike_McDerment_Headshot.jpg" alt="" width="152" height="203" />So....there you are....working diligently on your company and then you're in charge of people.  WHAT!?  People don't come with instruction manuals and leading them can be hairy!</p> <p>In this episode, I had the opportunity to talk with Mike McDerment, the big cheese at Freshbooks and his journey was very much like my opening statement.  Mike shares about his journey as a leader and how we've got to get around ourselves in order to create a place where people want to be.  I really enjoyed Mike's sense of humor and his candor and I know you will too!</p> <p><span style= "color: #c0392b; font-size: 14pt;"><strong>CHEERS!</strong></span></p> <p>More on Mike....</p> <p style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: left;"><span style= "font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato, serif; color: black;">Mike McDerment is the Co-Founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world’s #1 cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Built out of frustration after accidentally saving over an invoice, Mike spent 3.5 years growing FreshBooks from his parents’ basement. Since launching in 2003, over 10 million people have used FreshBooks to save time billing, and collect billions of dollars. A lover of the outdoors, Mike has been bitten so many times it’s rumoured he’s the first human to have developed immunity to mosquitoes.</span></p> <p style="margin-left: .25in;"><span style= "font-size: 12pt; font-family: Lato, serif; color: black;">In January 2003, Mike was running a four-person design agency and using Microsoft Word to create invoices. One day, he accidentally saved over an old invoice, and something in him snapped – he knew there had to be a better way. Over the next two weeks, he coded u